BMW raided by diesel investigators

BMW has brushed off a raid on two of its offices yesterday by the Dieselgate investigation group set up by the Munich public prosecutor's office.

The raids, involving 100 police officers and lawyers, focused on the BMW Group headquarters in Munich and another unidentified office in Austria.

They took place a day ahead of the BMW Group's annual accounts conference, and the same task force also conducted raids on BMW's archrival Audi on the eve of the other Bavarian car maker's financial results conference.

BMW stated the raids were unnecessary, and insisted they related to the incorrect use of X5 and X6 diesel software to upgrade 7- and 5-series models.

"Yesterday, employees from Munich's prosecutors office searched two sites of the BMW Group related to incorrect software," the BMW Group's senior vice-president, corporate and government affairs, Maximilian Schöberl (pictured), admitted at the opening of the conference.

"This relates to 11,400 cars that were isolated to the 750 d and M550 d.

"A recall has been ordered at the German authorities and we support all the authorities in their work.

"This was clearly an erroneous fitment of the software from one model to another, rather than anything else. BMW brought this error to the attention of authorities voluntarily and asked for a recall to correct it. This was nothing intentional."

BMW has never been implicated in diesel emissions cheating, like Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche, or in loophole-snatching schemes like Daimler's thermal switches. Its diesels have consistently performed well in independent tests, including the University of West Virginia test that uncovered Volkswagen's Dieselgate cheat.

Diesel sales have been in free fall in most of Europe from about midway through last year, falling from a high of nearly 50 percent on the continent to less than 33 percent in France and the UK so far last year.

Use of the fuel is under extreme pressure in Germany, where the Düsseldorf Constitutional Court ordered the state of North Rhine-Westphalia to ban older diesels – up to EU5 compliance – from the roads on high-pollution days, to pull down airborne NOx levels.

"Diesel is important for meeting CO2 targets. We believe banning diesel vehicles is the wrong approach," BMW's Board of Management Chairman, Dr Harald Krüger, said today.

"We have promised our leasing customers in Germany that we will take back our BMW diesels if bans are introduced.

"It would also be helpful if the discussion about nitrogen oxides and particulate matter were based more on reality and facts," he said.

BMW's diesel sales fell last year in France, Germany and the UK, though stayed strong in Italy, which is the only European country where diesel sales have remained at their pre-Dieselgate levels.